Monday, November 24, 2003

Distinguished military historian John Keegan has a new book out
suggesting that the importance of military intelligence has been
frequently overrated. The gurus of high-tech information warfare know
enough not to challenge Keegan on his own home ground; instead they
suggest that all that history that he knows so well, is, well, history:

Bruce Hoffman, director of RAND's Washington office and a
terrorism analyst, said that although Sir John analyzed the role
of intelligence in countering Al Qaeda, most of his examples were
drawn from 18th- to 20th-century wars rather than 21st-century
conflicts. "Keegan is largely right on the role of intelligence in
conventional wars," Mr. Hoffman said, "but he is not right about
counterinsurgencies in any century, when intelligence is the sine
qua non of success." Modern wars, he argued, are not fought only
with military tools. "So intelligence has a very different role
today. You can no longer fight, much less win them just with
military strength."

Great news for our forces in Iraq, which might be able to succeed
by applying intelligence, without brute manpower. Or not:

Mr. Hoffman maintained, for instance, that poor intelligence on
the radical jihadists and pro-Saddam Hussein loyalists who are
killing both Iraqis and American soldiers today "is one of our
major problems in Iraq."